


pine, plum, and cherry

by SatyrSyd37



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Edo Period, Kabuki - Freeform, M/M, Sirens
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-02-01 02:57:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21346837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SatyrSyd37/pseuds/SatyrSyd37
Summary: Siren Oikawa Tooru, the foster son of a courtier and the secret star of Edo's kabuki theater, uses his voice to seduce the mysterious son of a daimyo.
Relationships: Oikawa Tooru/Sugawara Koushi
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14
Collections: Fantasy Haikyuu





	pine, plum, and cherry

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TottWriter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TottWriter/gifts).

> Hi Tott! I'm so so sorry this took me so long to put out, thank you for your patience! Here is part 1 of 2 of an Edo period fantasy au, complete with sirens and....perhaps some other magical creatures? Please enjoy!

_ “The stately pines that stand  _

_ Verdant, ageless on Mount Hakoya, _

_ Were transformed, they say, _

_ Into slender, graceful girls.” _

There is a man in the theater Oikawa has never seen before. Dressed in layers upon layers of rich, colorful fabrics, he sits a hands-width distance from the foot of the stage, steady as the brush of a skilled calligrapher, watching with unblinking brown eyes.

And he’s beautiful. 

Oikawa looks directly at him as he sings the opening monologue, using nothing but his voice to bind him up and drag him out to sea.

_ “But here too in Japan _

_ Are persons named for trees -  _

_ Matsu, for the pine,  _

_ Ume, for the plum,  _

_ Sakura, for the flowering cherry.” _

Indeed, this mysterious patron of kabuki theater has eyes dark as pine tree bark, grey hair whirling like sakura branches, lips sweet as plums. 

_ “The great heavenly god _

_ Composed a poem to his beloved plum,  _

_ And this is handed down _

_ Most gratefully _

_ To us of later ages.” _

The thrum of Iwa-chan’s samisen takes over for his voice. The eyes of the theater-goers, glazed over at the sound of Oikawa’s amorous song, slowly cloud back to life. But the mysterious patron at the front stares at him with sharp eyes.

The stage curtains are pulled to the side. And so the story begins.

“Iwa-chan, did you see that man?”

Oikawa planned to confront the stranger as soon as the performance is over, but to his annoyance, the man was already gone. Wriggled out from under his grasp like a slippery fish. Normally he would be annoyed that someone left before the performance was over - no one ever leaves a production Oikawa hosts - but he’s too infatuated to care about that. He needs to see the mysterious man again.

“Hand me that bucket, would you?” Iwaizumi says, rubbing at the red shadows drawn around his eyes. “I need to get this crap off of my face.”

Oikawa brings the bucket of water over to Iwaizumi and sits on top of it. 

“Oi.”

“The man sitting in the front? With the gorgeous face? Did you see him?”

Iwaizumi pushes him off the bucket. “How could I not. Those orange robes were blinding.”

“I want him.”

Iwaizumi looks as if he’s about to laugh, like this is another one of Oikawa’s jokes, but then he sees the unwavering, greedy gleam in Oikawa’s eye. “You’re joking.”

Oikawa smirks. 

“Idiot-kawa do you even know who that is?”

Oikawa twirls around him. “It doesn’t matter who he is. I’ll have him, and his riches.”

Iwaizumi rolls his eyes. “You spoiled brat.”

Oikawa may be a spoiled brat, but he thinks after years of living off the garbage of Edo’s, he deserves to be spoiled. He’s earned it, by his own merit. It had taken him weeks and weeks of training with Iwaizumi, another orphan and his best friend for as long as he can remember, to figure out how his gift worked. And after that, he had to search for  _ years _ to figure out what the great widowed of aristocrat before he could enchant her into accepting them as her foster sons (it turns out, her deepest desire was to erase her memories of her husband, and so Oikawa sung her songs of her independence and happiness). 

Luckily, the guards were much simpler to understand. A bribe of the promise of a woman was all it took for them to turn their backs when he snuck out of the estate. Even after he became a courtier, he couldn’t abandon his love of kabuki. Courtiers don’t perform kabuki, so he did it in secret. No one had recognized him yet. And they won’t - not if Oikawa has anything to sing about it.

Now there is something new he desires. All he has to figure out is who this person is and what he desires. And then, Oikawa will have him. 

The mysterious man returns a few days later for the next act of _ Sugawara and the Secrets of Calligraphy.  _ Oikawa never takes his eyes off of him. The man stares at him in return. He looks at Oikawa’s lips. Throughout the performance, Oikawa struggles to keep his heart from thudding out of his chest.

He follows the man out of the theater, not even taking the time to remove his kabuki costume or makeup. Iwaizumi can yell at him for that later.

The man is walked home by a broad-shouldered samurai with short-cropped hair. So Oikawa keeps his distance, but follows close enough to hear their conversation. Only, they’re not speaking. Perhaps they have a professional relationship. 

He follows them through the city that is rapidly beginning to grow dark, until finally, they arrive at their destination.

It’s the estate of a daimyo. 

Oh.  _ Oh _ . Well maybe this did make things a little bit harder. This man - he couldn’t be the daimyo himself, he wasn’t dressed right, but he was dressed richly. His son, maybe?

This mission just got much more complicated. Time to call in back-up.

**Author's Note:**

> Note: The kabuki play Oikawa is performing is called _Sugawara and the Secrets of Calligraphy _(Sugawara denju tenarai kagami) and is a real play. The translations I use here (written in italics) are direct quotes from Sugawara and the Secrets of Calligraphy as translated by Stanleigh H. Jones Jr. (Columbia University Press, 1985.) Yes I checked out an actual real physical book to get these quotes lmao. 
> 
> Part 2 coming soon!


End file.
